Thursday, January 22, 2009

So far, this was the stuff of fairy tales, but now George Friedman attempts to do this in his new book "The Next 100 Years". From the extensive book reviews I like the reasoning behind the predictions - it is logical, on the other hand very frequently on this planet things have happened that no one predicted.

The main prediction is that the US will remain the main World power. I think the case is well made, I also think the US has the inner will and the belief that it can lead the World and remain the shining city on a hill. This is influenced by the "Yes we can" attitude that is so prominent in President Obama's speeches. As far as I know, not many countries exhibit this kind of attitude.

Closer to home, Poland is predicted to be a major power in Europe - and this is due to the close cooperation with the US - and I suspect the Baltic states (esp. Lithuania) will benefit from it - since as G.Friedman mentions the history repeats itself.

Consider "Pan Tadeusz" by the one of the best known Polish poets A.Mickiewicz :"O Lithuania, my country, thouArt like good health; I never knew till nowHow precious, till I lost thee. Now I seeThe beauty whole, because I yearn for thee."

On the oher hand, he predicts the Russian demographics will add to the decline of Russia, Turkey will increase in significance and the West Europe will decrease in significance. All this makes sense - and I am curious how it will progress. Are we going to see more cooperation between the New Europe and the US? Or is the "New Europe" too broad a definition - since it includes some very dissimilar cultures of various countries in the Balkans, Central Europe and the Baltic states. Also, is there a prediction about another big country - Ukraine - that is very tightly related to the two countries (Russia and Poland) that figure prominently in his analysis?

Friday, January 16, 2009

After the riots in Greece, Iceland, Bulgaria, and Latvia today was Lithuania's turn. Labour unions were protesting the freezes in pay due to recession, and some angry protesters started hurling stones, eggs etc at the Police, Parliament and Government buidings. Delfi.lt provides some pictures and statistics: 82 arrested, 15 injured.

An interesting feature emerges in this event. There is a lot of young men participating - some of them seemingly under influence of some kind (e.g. drunk), the footage on Delfi.lt shows some of them speaking in Lithuanian, some of them not, and some with an accent (or is it my Samogitian ear?). No problem with this - everybody has a right to come to a meeting.

Be as it may, but how come some of these people came with smoke bombs and other things that hint to a pre-meditated action that is not related to the intent of the labour unions? Normally these hoolingans are not that organized, or are they (that would make it the first one in Lithuania)?

Even though some people could start talking about Kremlin's hand and/or the fifth column - I believe this is far fetched. I think our own stupidity should not be underestimated.

Sunday, January 11, 2009

The message on Delfi.lt indicates that Slovakia is re-starting the nuclear reactors that were shut down as a part of the accession agreement with the EU. This is a tough situation for the EU and a test case for Lithuania. In this case - Slovakia, not Lithuania, blinked first.

An interesting parallel between Lithuania and Slovakia was related to the adoption of the common European currency. Slovakia uses Euro since January 1, 2009 and Lithuania was not allowed to make the switch because of a small (fraction of a percentage point, 0.17% if memory serves me right) variation from the "official" inflation rate criteria.

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

As the commemoration of the of the January 13, 1991 approaches, I thought it would be nice to dig up a link a poster from 1991 - a really cool one - depicting a young person (perhaps 16 or 17 years old) being raised above the crowd and holding the Lithuanian flag. The striking feature of this picture was that the foreground showed a big group the Soviet soldiers, in straigth lines, in helmets and AK-47s. I guess that was one of these pictures that IMHO catch the moment really well - and for some reason it stays in my memory. Alas, I could not find it.